Obama: Ineffectually Challenged

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President Barack Obama is in a funk. Americans are coming to see the president as ineffectual. That is a dangerous perception.

Obama’s job approval rating is at risk of dropping below 40 percent. Democrats may lose their majority in the Senate this fall. It may be difficult for the president to accomplish anything during his last two years.

Karl Rove, the “architect” of President George W. Bush’s two winning campaigns, said Obamacare will be worse for Democrats this year than it was in 2010, “especially incumbent Democrats in red, even purple, states and districts who voted for the monstrosity.”

Representative Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) called Obamacare “one of the most insidious laws ever created by man.” You wait. Soon a Republican will claim that Obamacare is causing climate change.

Nonetheless, Obamacare is the law, and it’s unlikely that Republicans will be able to do anything about it as long as a Democrat is in the White House. But Obamacare is not the only, or even the most serious, problem that Obama is facing. His ratings on the economy and foreign policy are even lower than his rating on healthcare.

Voters like to believe a president is in control of events. He rarely is, but he has to convey that impression. It’s frightening for people to believe that their leaders have no control over events — that things are in danger of spinning out of control. That’s why New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani became a hero on 9/11. He gave the impression that he was in control — even if he really wasn’t.

Obama does not give that impression. The launch of Obamacare has been a disaster. While most Americans believe the program is worth saving — they want it fixed, not abolished the experience was a real blow to the Obama administration’s image of competence. Obama’s signature legislative achievement is seen as ineffectual.

Yet Obama’s core problem is the same as it’s been for the last five years — the economy. The recovery has been slow and painful. In fact, most Americans don’t see a recovery. In the NBC-Journal poll, 57 percent say the country is still in recession.

People are waiting for the second-term boom — like the one in President Ronald Reagan’s second term and in President Bill Clinton’s second term. Obama’s economic policies are seen as ineffectual.

Clinton had to deal with a Republican Congress led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Clinton got welfare reform and a balanced budget. Obama’s dealings with Congress, however, have been ineffectual.

The biggest surprise is foreign policy. During his first term, foreign policy was Obama’s strongest issue. He eliminated Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi from power. He ended the war in Iraq. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now his foreign policy ratings have taken a tumble — even though Obama has been careful to do what the American public wants him to do.

The public opposed a military strike in Syria. So Obama held back. The public opposes a military confrontation with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Obama has complied. Nonetheless, the human devastation in Syria continues unabated. And Russia has annexed the sovereign territory of another country. In both cases, the U.S. doesn’t seem to be able to do anything. We are ineffectual.

Commentators have been wrestling with the puzzle of Obama’s low foreign policy ratings. Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution writes that the American people “may want what Obama so far has been giving them, but they’re not proud of it, and they’re not grateful to him for giving them what they want.” Kagan describes this as “a narrowly self-interested American policy.”

Really? Daniel Larison argues in The American Conservative, “No one can seriously believe that Obama would have benefited politically from waging an unnecessary war [in Syria] over the strenuous objections of both the public and Congress.”

Ross Douthat comes closest to the answer when he writes for The New York Times that what matters isn’t the policy, but the results. If a president does what the people want and it turns out disastrously, the president will still be blamed.

On foreign policy, just like on the economy and so far on Obamacare, people haven’t seen many good results. That means there is likely to be a big market in 2016 for a candidate who can deliver what Obama hasn’t — effectiveness. Right now, the candidate who fits that description is not a Republican, but another Democrat: Hillary Clinton.

It will defy every gender stereotype if voters decide they want a stronger, tougher, more effective leader than Obama in 2016 and they turn to a woman.

PHOTO (TOP): President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi following their meeting at Villa Madama in Rome. March 27, 2014. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

PHOTO (INSERT 1): President Barack Obama listens to remarks during a joint news conference at the European Union-United States Summit in Brussels, March 26, 2014. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

PHOTO (INSERT 2): Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives opening remarks for the plenary session on the second day of the 2014 meeting of Clinton Global Initiative University, at Arizona State University in Tempe, March 22, 2014. REUTERS/Samantha Sais

Making real decisions and changes from the presidency could get you assasinated. I think Carter was the last president that didn’t realise until he was in office that the government is not controlled by the president or congress or both together. Try cutting back on wars and the internal secret police and see what happens Mr President. Oh, right, you know that. Well, the press pretends like it’s not real because they are part of it.

The leaders of business are held accountable for the success or failure of their organization. They must be able to control events within their organization, and successfully react to those from outside…it’s called leadership. To say a leader is “not in control of events” is another way of saying they are lack leadership competence and need to be fired. Obama needs to be impeached before further damage is done.

The leaders of business are held accountable for the success or failure of their organization. They must be able to control events within their organization, and successfully react to those from outside…it’s called leadership. To say a leader is “not in control of events” is another way of saying they are lack leadership competence and need to be fired. Obama needs to be impeached before further damage is done.

“Yet Obama’s core problem is the same as it’s been for the last five years — the economy.”

Wrong. Obama’s core problem is a lack of integrity. He either lied about the impact of his major legislative agenda, or was utterly ignorant of how it actually worked. It’s hard to decide which is actually worse.

And that’s what people are P.O.ed about, and that passes thru intact to all who joined him. “Fix it, don’t nix it” doesn’t address that.

I can’t think of a time when the media ‘spin’ was that ACA wasn’t panned and that Obama wasn’t dubbed ineffectual, regardless of whatever was happening and what the reality of the American Care Act is. Heck, even MSM is universally calling it Obamacare, and they are practically saying that Putin took Crimea because Obama is soft… What… the… F***!? I guess it shows two things: the majority of Americans are intellectually challenged and that the media plays into the public’s perceptions to gain marketshare in a saturated news media market. Astonishingly (or not) it takes foreigners to point out what is really happening in America because your information systems are nonsensical.

Aetna a privatized health insurance company that doesn’t provide any actual health care just gave a raise to the CEO so they can provided even less services that they already don’t provide. WHAT A SCAM!!! L.

Schneider fails to see what a majority of Americans see. Obama is big with the teleprompter rhetoric, but his actions fail to accomplish what his words promise. Putin measured his resolve and it clear that Obama fails to measure up. From the beginning he promised action, but when action was required, he always insisted that it wasn’t on his watch. After 5+ years of such weaseling, he has no command presence or capital to bring to the table. The spinelessness shows in his inability to call anyone to account for the international and domestic scandals and policy disasters. After all, as he assures us, it isn’t his fault.

EdRies complains of Obama on Crimea: “From the beginning he promised action…”

He did? Please post a reference to support this claim. I hear some people say that Obama has not followed through on some…. threat he made to Russia about Crimea, but most of them appear to be misled by conservative news commentary on the subject. Obama has not threatened Russia over Crimea.

Obama is wisely staying out of what amounts to an internal border dispute in the former soviet union. Most Americans could not care less about Crimea because it was part of the soviet union for decades anyway. A write-off of the most ordinary kind.